Thursday, May 7, 2015

THE SIR WALTER REFLEX

It occurs to wonder, why would NB be so intemperate about an offhand post that did not directly assail the pro-feminist beliefs of the essay under discussion. My post on the subject of the Asselin-CBR imbroglio wasn't even a matter of playing devil's advocate. It was on the level of "crossing a T" with respect to the reportage of factual news.

Yet, in a thread referenced here, I made copious direct comments in express opposition to another poster's ultraliberal views on race, as well as those of NB himself, and NB never threatened me with deletion.

I theorize that NB's attitude re: feminism is rooted in the "Sir Walter Reflex," a reflex that comes into play only when a male debater thinks that he is acting in the defense of womanhood.

I didn't name the reflex, but I witnessed it before while responding to another "hit-and-run" excuse for a critic, Chicken Colin. In his Sequart hatchet job on one of my essays, he tried to claim, falsely, that Kelly Thompson didn't need him to defend her. Yet when Thompson chose not to engage me in prolonged debate, the Chicken attacked my analysis of Thompson's essay in terms that were, like NB's, oriented on painting me as a male chauvinist.

The only thing that separates NB and CC is that even though both are equally oriented on defending womankind from the Evil Chauvinists, NB at least engaged me a few more times than the utterly cowardly Chicken.

I won't even get into the extent to which the views of Dave Sim-- as incoherent as they were-- were assailed not for their incoherence but for their failure to support an unquestioned ultraliberal narrative.